US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5631

On April 04 2026 15:13 Falling wrote:

I mean, it's pretty part for the course for him. He isn't known for who he hires so much as that he fires a lot of people. (Tough businessman who makes the tough business decisions or some such.) Which might make some sort of sense if he was taking over from somebody else and cleaning out the old crowd. But especially in his second administration who he is and will be firing is a bunch of people that nobody thought competent (except to those who defend Trump no matter what) and whose sole qualification seemed to be their sycophantic nature (which got motte and bailey as of course you would hire someone who is supportive of elected president). But it's no virtue to fire someone who was always going to be bad at the actual job (though maybe the actual job was to prosecute Trump's political enemies and bury the Epstein files and tie up the courts while the executive ignores habeus corpus).

But good tsar bad boyar needs a fall guy/ girl.

Speaking of another merry member of Trump's team of the best of the best.
Big data breach in the FBI
FBI labels data breach ‘major incident,’ notifies Congress
Big sad for Kash if he also becomes another fall guy so he can't jet set around the world to party with the hockey boys on the taxpayer's dime.

Additionally, the war must be going according to plan as Hegseth fires generals:
Hegseth ousts US Army chief of staff and two other generals amid Iran war

Meanwhile, Trump has already managed to cost the government $100m so he can golf on his own courses.
Taxpayers’ Tab for Donald Trump’s Golf Habit Crosses $100 Million
This alone ought to have been disqualifying in his first term that the president can charge taxpayers such exorbitant sums to his own business, for recreation.

On April 04 2026 22:19 WombaT wrote:

+ Show Spoiler +
In the wider scheme of things, something I said a good few pages/topics back is that there are silver linings to this incompetence. It seems to be actively hampering the ability of this administration to enact its agenda. It seems Trump’s own pathology precludes him finding a sweet spot of general competent loyalists getting shit done because of his need for 100% fealty

On April 04 2026 21:12 maybenexttime wrote:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/trump-iran-war-allies/686423/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3wsM-mNGvnN32f98z3zNons&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

An article by Anne Applebaum. A good summary of how Trump's fuckery is perceived in Europe.

On April 04 2026 22:37 GreenHorizons wrote:
Yeah, even so, he's done quite a bit of irreparable damage. Including exposing the US (again) as a bit of a paper tiger.

What do Democrats have to do differently so that they don't continue to be less favorable than Trump and Republicans in the eyes of the public?

On April 04 2026 21:12 maybenexttime wrote:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/trump-iran-war-allies/686423/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3wsM-mNGvnN32f98z3zNons&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

An article by Anne Applebaum. A good summary of how Trump's fuckery is perceived in Europe.

On April 04 2026 22:46 WombaT wrote:

Have a different public? I haven’t been religiously following polls, I was under the impression that had flipped anyway?

I wouldn’t view the former as a bad thing, minus the human cost of various calls. Multilateralism is looking rather more attractive lately

On April 04 2026 15:13 Falling wrote:

I mean, it's pretty part for the course for him. He isn't known for who he hires so much as that he fires a lot of people. (Tough businessman who makes the tough business decisions or some such.) Which might make some sort of sense if he was taking over from somebody else and cleaning out the old crowd. But especially in his second administration who he is and will be firing is a bunch of people that nobody thought competent (except to those who defend Trump no matter what) and whose sole qualification seemed to be their sycophantic nature (which got motte and bailey as of course you would hire someone who is supportive of elected president). But it's no virtue to fire someone who was always going to be bad at the actual job (though maybe the actual job was to prosecute Trump's political enemies and bury the Epstein files and tie up the courts while the executive ignores habeus corpus).

But good tsar bad boyar needs a fall guy/ girl.

Speaking of another merry member of Trump's team of the best of the best.
Big data breach in the FBI
FBI labels data breach ‘major incident,’ notifies Congress
Big sad for Kash if he also becomes another fall guy so he can't jet set around the world to party with the hockey boys on the taxpayer's dime.

Additionally, the war must be going according to plan as Hegseth fires generals:
Hegseth ousts US Army chief of staff and two other generals amid Iran war

Meanwhile, Trump has already managed to cost the government $100m so he can golf on his own courses.
Taxpayers’ Tab for Donald Trump’s Golf Habit Crosses $100 Million
This alone ought to have been disqualifying in his first term that the president can charge taxpayers such exorbitant sums to his own business, for recreation.

On April 04 2026 22:19 WombaT wrote:

Par for the golf course eh? Hurhur

It’s relatively small fry in the greater scheme of things, I’ve always been dually perplexed by how he’s even allowed to use taxpayer funds on his own businesses in the first place, and why this doesn’t seem to be an issue for some folks.

In the wider scheme of things, something I said a good few pages/topics back is that there are silver linings to this incompetence. It seems to be actively hampering the ability of this administration to enact its agenda. It seems Trump’s own pathology precludes him finding a sweet spot of general competent loyalists getting shit done because of his need for 100% fealty

On April 04 2026 21:12 maybenexttime wrote:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/trump-iran-war-allies/686423/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3wsM-mNGvnN32f98z3zNons&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

An article by Anne Applebaum. A good summary of how Trump's fuckery is perceived in Europe.

NATO faces a “very bad” future if it doesn’t help clear the strait, Trump told the Financial Times, apparently forgetting that the United States founded the organization and has led it since its creation in 1949.

The result: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has declared that Canada will not participate in the “offensive operations of Israel and the U.S., and it never will.” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius says, “This is not our war, and we didn’t start it.” The Spanish prime minister refused to let the United States use bases for the beginning of the war. The U.K. and France might send some ships to protect their own bases or allies in the Gulf, but neither will send their soldiers or sailors into offensive operations started without their assent.

Danish leaders had to think about whether their military would shoot down American planes, kill American soldiers, and be killed by them, an exercise so wrenching that some still haven’t recovered.

Specifically, they remember that for 14 months, the American president has tariffed them, mocked their security concerns, and repeatedly insulted them.

On April 05 2026 03:33 oBlade wrote:
You think I bombed a school dude.

He didn't spend $100m of tax dollars at his golf courses.

That framing, added only after the article and not within it, is due to impressibility, or intentional disinformation.

It just means a president's existence is expensive. The planes, the cars, the security. The more people want to kill the president, the more expensive it is. Everywhere. If he gives a speech, holds a rally, goes to Europe, visits factories, picks up hamburgers for everyone.

-We might need to have Greenland.
No you don't everything's fine you have bases you can use and can put more bases if you need with the agreement that should be enough.
-Hey trusted American NATO ally can we use your bases.
No.

On April 05 2026 03:06 oBlade wrote:

He didn't spend $100m of tax dollars at his golf courses.

That framing, added only after the article and not within it, is due to impressibility, or intentional disinformation.

It just means a president's existence is expensive. The planes, the cars, the security. The more people want to kill the president, the more expensive it is. Everywhere. If he gives a speech, holds a rally, goes to Europe, visits factories, picks up hamburgers for everyone.

There can be such a thing as an article that sources and quotes and explains what certain people think of something, this one is mainly the gossip thoughts of the American columnist who wrote it though.


The two halves of this sentence don't have a connection. "Apparently forgetting" lol. This is the nonnest of sequiturs. Columnists just say anything. "This marriage faces a bad future, he said, apparently forgetting that in 1949 he was the one who proposed to and married her."


-We might need to have Greenland.
No you don't everything's fine you have bases you can use and can put more bases if you need with the agreement that should be enough.
-Hey trusted American NATO ally can we use your bases.
No.


I pray for the mental recovery of Danish leaders, but apparently they don't have to think about this anymore so that's nice.


This person would like to frame herself as dispassionate. Neutral. But if you criticize Trump for "mocking" security concerns and don't notice the country that you just acknowledged as the leader and founder of an alliance has its own security concerns that motivate the disagreements to begin with, it's transparently biased. She doesn't have to agree but missing the point altogether just makes her look primitive.

She also appears to think Hormuz is mined when it's not (remembering that "ackshually at least one mine has been seen at some point" is not what we're talking about for blocking with mines). Even if Iran had boats left to carry mines, due to how water currents work you can't selectively mine and they would therefore be mining against the shadow tankers carrying their own oil and cutting off their chief export.

I’m the one that makes the decision and that decision would have to go across my desk and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.

On April 05 2026 03:56 KwarK wrote:
It’s just weird that your confidence in your opinions is in no way shaken by being wrong over and over. If I was watching a sports show and the analysts repeatedly failed to predict the outcome of the game with results worse than random guessing and even failed to predict results when the game was 90% over with a clear leader, well, I would stop letting those analysts shape my opinions. I would probably stop watching the show.

But you don’t do that. You keep watching the show, listening to the “analysts”, and then keep repeating what you heard here as if that makes you some kind of expert.

On April 05 2026 03:56 KwarK wrote:
But even if you pretend that your opinions have been outperformed by someone saying nothing at all, nobody else will.

On April 05 2026 03:57 LightSpectra wrote:


Their blood is partially on your hands because you voted for the person who unilaterally decided on war, appointed the SecDef in charge of making sure civilian targets aren't bombed, and continue to give worthless apologism for it.

On April 05 2026 04:08 Falling wrote:

That is true that wherever a president goes is expensive. Which is why it is egregious that he spends so much of his time flying back to his own golf courses for the weekend, bringing his entire entourage with him- to a location that requires even more security given it's by the water. It's true the full $100m doesn't go into his pocket.

However, his insistence on spending 103 days of 440 days of administration golfing, mostly on his own courses means it is considerably more expensive to the taxpayer than if he chose to golf locally. The fact that a portion of that $100m directly benefits his own business because his entourage is staying in his business is what makes it corrupt enough to be disqualifying to any one who actually cares about law and order. But here you are defending Trump.

Show me any previous US president in the last century that has this much conflict of interest with their own businesses (and we're aren't even touching that Trump never put his businesses into a blind trust and Eric's business dealings start looking suspiciously timed to whatever Trump is doing in the region.)

https://didtrumpgolftoday.com/

On April 05 2026 05:00 oBlade wrote:

What show?

In addition to the delusion that I bombed a school, you said that there are mines just waiting to float to the surface from the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz, oh and that the US surrendered and lost already. Now even though you've said all that and plus never taken back your repeated terrorist claim that someone should blow up the Supreme Court, and I could sit here like a broken record harping on that as the world keeps turning, it just wouldn't be productive.


Words fail KwarK.



There is no "sure" in war.

And there's death outside of war.

Between us the only blood on anyone's hands is from you frantically assaulting your keyboard to post toxic nonsense like this. You would have to first hold yourself responsible for everyone who dies every time you squander your right to vote before trying to throw stones.


The businesses is not the issue of the article you posted.

You can't say "Blumpf strangled a baby," meet the truth "no," and then go "okay but why are you still defending him?" when someone only mentioned the baby thing. Obviously. Did you really misrepresent the article on purpose claiming his businesses had charged $100 million to the US taxpayer just so you could bait and switch and say I was defending some other vaguely suspicious other thing Eric Trump did?

"His entourage is staying in his business" sounds like you are confusing something years ago with people staying in Trump hotels or something. Or you don't know how a golf course works. HuffPost was estimating operating costs for the government. It's not that it's not the full $100m. It's a different thing entirely. There's not even any new information in the article because HuffPost is incapable of investigating something. It's estimates based on first term complaints about the same thing.

"He shouldn't be golfing or taking breaks" is its own question. The lazy bastard debate goes back like 4 presidents or so now. We both know exactly where you'd be in the universe where Trump was poor, posting about his "insistence on spending 103 out of 440 days of his administration golfing... locally."

Mar-a-Lago is his HOME. I don't care how expensive it is to keep the president safe and secure and keep everyone and everything he needs with him wherever he goes. I find it in fact nonnegotiable. I don't need any ideas of restrictions from citizens of other countries saying POTUS should actually stay in the basement more and trust me it will save money. Or maybe he should have to cut some security or not go to his own home. The physical existence and security of the president is NOT a budget cutting place. If Biden went to Delaware too much it'd be because he wasn't paying attention. Not because it cost money to move the president around. It's supposed to cost money to maintain the presidency, it can only cost money. The presidency is necessarily bigger than everything else.

Wow golfing at A is more expensive than golfing at B. Should golf at B. Even though he lives at A. But also not golfing at all is cheaper than any golfing, but THAT'S not a big deal, trust me I really support his right to golf 103 out of 440 days locally.

On April 05 2026 05:00 oBlade wrote:
you said that there are mines just waiting to float to the surface from the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz

Bottom mines utilize negative buoyancy to rest on the bottom or buried into the sea floor. Because they sit on the sea floor, bottom mines can be packed with bigger explosive charges; bottom mines available on the international market have explosive charges up to at least 2,200 pounds. Many bottom mines are influence mines, but they can also actuate via contact or remote-control. Because many bottom mines rely on sensing vessels on the surface, and because their explosive energy has to reach a ship’s keel floating near the surface, bottom mines tend to work in relatively shallow water (less than 164 feet).

On April 05 2026 03:06 oBlade wrote:
She also appears to think Hormuz is mined when it's not (remembering that "ackshually at least one mine has been seen at some point" is not what we're talking about for blocking with mines). Even if Iran had boats left to carry mines, due to how water currents work you can't selectively mine and they would therefore be mining against the shadow tankers carrying their own oil and cutting off their chief export.